172 Lion Weight

Museum Description: Lion Weight

Room: 52/Case: 3/Number: E32625

Scripture: Matthew 25:24

This beautifully cast lion weighs just over 31kg, so roughly corresponds to a Babylonian talent.  A talent was the heaviest of the Hebrew weights, at about 34kg, but in the first century the Greek standard was 20.4kg.  Usually referring to a weight of silver, we can understand even one talent would have been very valuable.

As all business transactions would have involved weighing, understanding weight was necessary to know monetary values.  There was a large scope for fraud, however, with cheating scales and inaccurate weights.  Modern values for the price of metals used for money in ancient times often do not give a true picture of their worth.  It is normally more useful to know the value in terms of a day's wage for a labourer.  Other similar or related artefacts are on display in The British Museum.